The Discord Isn't a Good Place for Discussion

A place to discuss topics affecting quizbowlers as a community rather than quizbowl as a game.
Post Reply
kammajos000
Lulu
Posts: 83
Joined: Tue Aug 30, 2016 5:08 pm

The Discord Isn't a Good Place for Discussion

Post by kammajos000 »

Though this is tangentially related to Yijen Tang's "A Message for Quizbowl Adults Online" post from yesterday and the ensuing discussion, I'm creating a different thread for this because it's something I've been thinking about for a while and not intended as a response to that post.

I'm making this post to suggest that Discord is not the place for serious discussion of either the game of quiz bowl itself (e.g. game mechanics or distribution) or the community surrounding it. The nature of the platform is not conducive to well-thought-out posts and the continuity of a discussion, which Clark Smith touched on earlier today (and made some good suggestions for improving the Discord). I don't think, though, that the Discord can be brought to a state in which it would become superior to the forums as a platform for discussion.


The Problems with Discord:
A big issue with the Discord is that it requires a lot of patience and time to actually understand what's happening. Sometimes, when some kind of quiz bowl drama happens, it's discussed on Discord. Then, if you go on and try to read through it, you'll see something like "400+ new messages since yesterday". To stay up to date with a popular discussion, there are often hundreds of messages to read, and most of them are garbage: one-sentence replies, weird attempts at jokes, people trying to talk about something else, etc. To find the few nuggets of decent points, you need to sift through all this half-baked junk. This isn't a problem for the people who are seemingly always plugged into Discord, but for most people, it's just not worth it. This results in the same people chiming in with dozens of posts each discussion, thus dominating the direction of the discussion. To stay on top of (or influence) discussion in the Discord, you basically need to be "always online", which should not be encouraged since it is not healthy.

The control of discussion by the most active users (who often become moderators with the power to mute people), while probably intended to keep things focused, doesn't really work in practice. Just this morning I was reading through some of the discussion from yesterday evening about Yijen's post and the qbwiki (an exemplar of the unfocused, unproductive discussion I described above). At one point the moderators muted someone who they deemed to be off topic, but instead of refocusing the discussion, it mostly devolved into "1. people talking about how much they thought that guy sucks" and "2. people defending him/claiming mod abuse, then promptly getting muted themselves". Eventually, the whole thing was derailed and shut down. The issues with Discord aren't fixed by moderators.


The Forums Are Better:
Right now, the forums are still generally seen as the place for serious discussion, and it should stay that way. The forums, though not perfect, don't suffer from the large issues that Discord has. Posts on the forums are longer and more thought out, and the responses are much better about staying on topic. This is aided by the moderators, who, empirically, do a pretty good job, but mainly because there are simply a lot fewer low effort, off topic posts on the forums than on Discord. The organization of the forums also helps things. While the Discord has thousands of messages in discussion channels, each post on the forums and its replies are constrained to one webpage where it's easy to view all that's been said about a particular topic. This requires much less time and effort to keep up with and is much more accessible. In case you're not familiar with how easy it can be, go to the forums, make an account, click on "Quick Links", then "New posts", and make a bookmark of that page on your browser. Each time you want to find what people have been discussing, just click that bookmark.

I've heard a lot of people, especially younger players, count out the forums on the basis that they are intimidating or that if they post, they're just going to get "dunked on by a bunch of olds". If you feel intimidated to post on the forums, here's my advice: just do it. You may get criticism from people, but it's not the end of the world. If you have a good idea for a post, make your voice heard. Chances are, a lot of people behind the scenes will agree with you. At some point, you just need to step up. It's the internet; when you post your thoughts you shouldn't expect everyone to agree with you and tell you good job. Any productive discussion needs to have people disagreeing and offering criticism. That doesn't mean they're mean or they dislike you as a person. Expecting those in the community with lots of knowledge and experience ("Olds") to not speak up when they disagree isn't a good idea.

Overall, I hope that Discord won't be considered a place for serious discussion and that more people feel comfortable posting on the forums, while understanding that it's ok if not everyone agrees with you.
Joe Kammann
Wayzata '18
Minnesota '22
User avatar
Cheynem
Sin
Posts: 7220
Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Re: The Discord Isn't a Good Place for Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

I think this is a well thought out post--I would agree that for substantive, more thoughtful discussion, the forums offer a better venue.
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota

"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
User avatar
sethpauluwu
Lulu
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2020 11:01 pm
Contact:

Re: The Discord Isn't a Good Place for Discussion

Post by sethpauluwu »

as someone who uses discord more than forums by a wide margin (mostly due to the reacts and replies making it easier to have a conversation), the forums are definitely better for making points which are easily viewed and built upon. it's just so formal and intimidating on here and i cannot visibly see what people are thinking immediately, which is normal and healthy, not necessarily a downside except for my impatience.

tbh it's not even the dunking that i fear (i am begging to get dunked on), it really is just intimidating because of the need to put on a front that feeds into having to write paragraphs of stuff that may end up being filler-- and also acknowledging that i am getting older.

also big sorry orz for being super online and just. starting stuff on the discord. i just feel an odd discontent with how things are and want to complain while only staffing some online events and not doing anything to help change things. hypocritical but
Seth Paul
Chartiers Valley School District (2014-2020)
Penn State University (2020-uwu)
---
We have a perfect name for fantasy realized: it is called nightmare. -Slavoj Zizek
Votre Kickstarter Est Nul
Rikku
Posts: 365
Joined: Wed May 06, 2015 2:09 pm

Re: The Discord Isn't a Good Place for Discussion

Post by Votre Kickstarter Est Nul »

It would seem very helpful to me if sets stopped creating discussion servers after a tournament and instead insisted on forums posts. By even introducing the option of a quickpost in a server, the set is bound to receive less forums criticism. It seems needlessly difficult to try and reshift set discussion by pleading with players; just take away the option. Even in just the discussion channel in playtest mirrors I've found it difficult to go back a month or two later and coherently piece together all the helpful comments about a question. It seems hard to generate a good forums set discussions these days, and while I could be completely off base, I can't help but feel normalizing very quick discord responses discourages forums posting.

On a semi-related note--one that perhaps ties a bit more into the other discord thread on Adults, and the debatably off-putting nature of the olds talkin' history[*]--I've always found it cool to read through the history of quizbowl writing. Being able to read old forums and see the shift in the ways historiography was clued from Set X to Set Y, or which set introduced a certain practice, places newer sets in an interesting historical timeline. Discord is ephemeral, and every set discussed solely on it half-dies (I have no clue if people create servers for sets that last forever; this is irrelevant, I think). There is no discord equivalent of an old ACF Regs discussion becoming public after the set is clear. Every other extracurricular activity I've ever done lacked this visible history (the closest I've ever gotten--in HS Model UN and college Mock Trial--only happened because my advisor had been around forever; even then the "history" tended to be very vague recollections like "cases are easier now because new teams found them intimidating"). This has always made quizbowl infinitely more interesting to me. It would be a shame to lose this.

[*]I say debatably to point out there was/is disagreement, not that those making that claim are not representing real sentiments (though it may be instantly clear where I stand)
Emmett Laurie
East Brunswick '16
Rutgers University '21
Post Reply